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69 comments on “Yeni Comments – Inquiry Opened”

There we go again. Instead of doing their job of plugging gaps in their policy and following international standards, a jock who spoke what was in his mind is being investigated.
Why are suspensions executed with such delays.

Ed in the case of Hewitson, when was the transgression and we know the outcome. if an appeal has been lodged, why is it taking so long to schedule the appeal and hear the matter?

if matters are dealt with consistently and efficiently, there will not be any criticism or comment.

Since when is it wrong to speak the truth?
Hewitson is a good jockey, I will give that to him, but manners, not so much – cannot even greet older people or even other trainers, since when is that right?
Still a yongster boet, remember that.
In the 15 years that I’ve known Muzi never has he ever turned away when I would like to greet him, he is always polite and happy.
So for a man like him to say something like that on international television has to mean something?
What is fair is fair and if he had to take his suspension during the chase of the championship, Lyle had to do the same as well.
Rules count for everyone, not just some and unfortunetly some people forget it and that is exactly why our country is in such a state because ‘the rules only apply to a few’.

That’s incorrect Karel. Fake news! You don’t get 20k for one drop, you have to drop twice. And also on separate occasions, else two drops counts as one. He has to do another drop if he wants the 20k. As of right now he has zero. And the clocks ticking, he needs to find a broadcastable moment or witnesses sometime in the next 340 days or so. You make it sound so simple.

Ag Tony you too miss the point! JR can claim the R20k in any manner of ways:. Why restrict the man to the dropping of paper. Indeed, if the NHRA was on it’s toes it would be achieved already: did you not see the creased state of the silks when Dynasty’s Blossom won. On National TV on a big raceday. Talk about bringing racing into disrepute, I ask you.

The comments on the internet site for other related articles regarding Muzi and his bitterness and unsportsmanlike conduct actually wreaks of supremacy and privilege.I must add it so much arse-lick for Hewitson. any of those think they are who question Muzis right to be aggrieved?.
To those as well, do they not consider Hewittsons tactics in drawing out the process as unsportsmanlike ?? consisting that he knows he is going for the title and leaving for Hong Kong and will “serve his suspension” while actually not being engaged??
Yes Muzi is right ……double standards at play .
I guess it’s too unthinkable for a black boy to upstage a white boy in a white dominated profession.
The NHA is to blame here so their enquiry makes little sense .
PS well done to the bloggers on this thread for seeing Hewitson without sucking up to his champion status.👍

Why does the Sporting Post not show a replay of the interview, and readers can decide for themselves whether Yeni’ s comments were appropriate or not? These half-baked reports leads people to their own interpretations and start lambasting Yeni!

It does not matter, Muzi you are supposed to be a sportman and take defeat graciously, the way you went away your business was not right! And I agree with Hilton Witz Mr Singh everyone is entitled to an opinion

Fair play to Muzi for speaking his mind, if he has a valid point then the NHA should fix the problem instead of punishing someone for expressing their opinion. He was in no way rude in his interview, more dissapointment than anything, could hear it in his voice.

In my opinion, Lyle is a top Jockey but their isn’t a more hard working jockey than Muzi in this country, had he been on all of Lyle’s rides and the same, the other way around, who know’s what the outcome would have be. Lyle would have probably not even ridden at Flamingo, luxury jockey to an extent.

All behing Muzi NHA concentrate and interrogate themselves instead on someone asking for transparancy and fairness and he has the right to be aggrieved. NHA Has taken us backwards looking for easy target instead of the systemic problem of the horse racing institution

Muzi Yeni – I was rooting for you to win title but alas you did not, so upward and onwards. Your comments come across as sour grapes especially as you only seemed to mention this issue on the last day of the season once the title appeared to be out of reach. It also appears as though you are playing the race card but cast your mind back to when the ‘rules’ were manipulated by Bling Khumalo a fews years ago … such is life, and often it isn’t fair.

Once again stating that I really wanted you to win the title, looking at the final stats for the season you actually didn’t deserve to win it. There were approximately 8 other jockeys in the Top 17 who had far better strike rates than you and one or two of the other stats are even more startling:

– Marcus rode only 26 less winners than you but had 1,182 fewer rides than you,
– Hewitson rode 4 more winners than you off 263 fewer mounts.

I put it to you sir, therefore, that you may have been sitting at the top of the jockey championship had you made more of your opportunities as opposed to laying the blame at the feet of the victor who found a loophole in the system and used it to his benefit. Let’s face it, with a season-long strike-rate of only 12% you surely can’t feel too aggrieved at not being crowned champion for the season (and that’s not too say that Hewitson’s strike rate of 14% is much better either).

This inquiry into Muzi’s comments has no merit at all and is wasteful expenditure.

We cannot stop freedom of speech. Muzi was asked a question and he answered it as he saw fit. It makes no difference if one or one million people disagree with Muzi. His view is his and he is entitled to it. It seems that the NHA is trying to stifle criticism which to me seems fairly made.

An inquiry should be held by the NHA into why the person at the NHA who opened the inquiry into the comments of Muzi should not be suspended pending proceedings to terminate their employment with the NHA.

Vee Moodley and Arnold Hyde need to step up to the plate and apologise to Muzi for creating such unnecessary embarrassment by inquiring into something that needs no inquiry.

By opening an inquiry the NHA is showing us that it has senior management who have hidden agendas and prejudices.

If the Public Protector can be held personally responsible for legal fees for not doing her job properly, why should this not equally apply to the NHA management?

Change the rules and we will see a change of heart and not ridiculous decisions like opening an inquiry into the frank and truthful comments of a jockey.

Get a life Vee Moodley and Arnold Hyde. You are the real embarrassment to horse racing.

To me, we are all waisting our time commenting on this issue. We all know the authorities are gone take action.
I pray they go easy on Muzi.
He is a jock that tried his best and worked hard in trying to win the title.
But he is staying here in SA and not running away like lyle who I must admit still as alot to learn here before moving abroad.
Lyle is a champ in his own rite. But owners and trainers should have shown more support to muzi in winning the title than lyle, because Muzi as been riding for years and deserves every bit of it.
I wish lyle all the best in his future abroad and muzi, i salute you champ for giving everything you had in trying to win the title.
Hope the authorities dont be to hard on Muzi, to me he is the champ and only because, he still staying here in SA for us all to enjoy what he does best, and that is… working his heart out for the industry.

Muzi, you were right to speak up and speak your mind, I support you all the way. No matter what the outcome of this investigation, what doesn’t break you makes you stronger. Come back stronger this new season, I’m rooting for you, brother. Deon.

The result is there. Get over the politics, get over yourselves (the negative comments) and congratulate the number one LH.
Well done to both Lyle and Muzi. Great season and 2 great jockeys. Let’s celebrate the two of them and wish them all the best moving forward. Goodbye and goodnight.

I am sorry Muzi, I have lost all respect in you. You don’t do this on live telly. If the roles would turn do you think Lyle would have done the same absolutely not. For you to talk about rainbow nation define it you were throwing the the black/white in our face. You are a bad sportsman! I won’t followimg you. Disgrace. The best jock won. Muzi go have your pity party some where else. And wipe away the crocodile tears.

This whole episode and many comments are so indicative of the disease that are poisoning our thinking in this country and world wide.It’s called racism and has many forms and way too much support and don’t be fooled into thinking that it has any color limitations. It’s a disease that poisons rational thinking, leads to emotional arguments and causes damaging division. When analysing human beings it would be difficult to come across anyone who doesn’t have their fair share of hard luck stories and endless setbacks. Some people just seem to deal with this better than others and find ways to overcome adversity. I feel really sorry for Muzi but in the end he came up short and should accept it more gracefully. We should all learn a little humility and a lot more love for one another. The world needs a cure.

Well done to lyle for winning the jockey championship.For Yeni (read sore loser)and his supporters ,who ,like him ,seem to have a political agenda,suck it up and try again.Truth is Yeni was just not good enough to outride Lyle.

muzi was robbed of a title, this hardworking young man who gives his all even if he is riding a donkey is not being castigated for speaking the truth. I spend enough time at Turfontein to know what a true gentleman muzi is and what a spoilt brat the other privileged one is.any way if it was not because of sean tarry Lyle would have not won the title.

Its ultimately all about EQ and I have suffered the same fate as Muzi once or twice because I let my emotions overpower my reasoning. These two jocks are both top class and gave it there all. Why is everyone now souring things by taking sides against or for. We should all be for and acknowledge that it was a good contest spoiled by a moments emotion that could happen to anyone. It is us, as commentators that are dropping the ball as we have all the time to not be emotional about the issue, yet we get sucked into petty politics and mud slinging.

I totally concur with the train of thought that the horse racing authorities should rather concentrate on bigger issues than to chastise the likeable Musi Yeni for voicing his rightful opinion. However, having said that it must be remembered that there is no racial bias as Sumango Khumalo found himself in a similar situation in 2015, and went on to win the jockey’s title via the same route and procedures.

Les taylor
To all the trainers ,give muzi the rides he wont have to work so hard his comments are simply to wake up the trainers to give him some decent rides L H had them so he deserves some armchair rides he workes so hard for the small stables to put them on the map he lives out of his suitcase only to be given crap rides

Why has no inquiry been forthcoming into the incident at greyville 2nd race gold cup day. Where blatantly muzi had a tug at hewitson arm trying to pull him off his mount. I do not understand how this has been kept so quiet.

In order for jockeys to establish themselves they have to ride work for stables and fortunately or unfortunately for some, most stables have a first choice jock which normally gets the “beter” rides. Like Khumalo, Hewitson gets the first choice mounts for the Tarry outfit, unless the owner decides otherwise.
Yeni obtains a lot of Flamingo Park ” plum rides without being able to ride the required work in the morning , the distance being one of the obvious reasons.
There are a lot of top jocks around and only the very world class jockeys hv the privilege of not having to ride work and predominantly the top race horses are owned by the van Niekerk’s , Wilgerbos or the Sheiks. Its their prerogative to influence the trainers of whom will then make the final decision of which jock to get the first option. It the case of Tarry ,its Hewitson and Danielson.
Yeni is a very good jock and his turn will intimately come with hard work.
Race is NOT an issue as the suspension of Khumalo can attest. After his suspension in 2015, amid all the appeals and red tape ,he went on to capture the jockey’s title, also amid a lot of criticism in some quarters

The whole champion system sucks.You cannot determain the championship on wins alone.Not all the jocks have the privilage of getting the best rides.They apply a point system with the apprentice championshipwhich is more than fair.
I gave them a detailed breakdown of how the end result would look like if the point system was applied,but they shot me down.
The pointvsystem as per the apprentice championship would change the whole outcome of the championship.
The point system :
Win 10 points
2nd 6 points
3rb 4 points
4th 2 points
5th 1 point.
For every mount 1 point.
Work out for youself and the result will amaze you.

I like this a lot Nico because it will reward all triers by rewarding the places as well and hard work by a point for each mount. Good idea and hard to understand how this would not be an improvement on the current system.

Nico, why don’t you push an article onto Sporting Post showing how this points system would work and what the last season result looks like under such a system? Publishing an article would open the Overton Window!

Proof positive that there is always a way to remix facts to get the opinion you want.

If you change the point allocation a little, you get a different champion again. Why would running last get you a championship point?

If a jockey rode in 300 races and won every single race, unbeaten, he would barely make the top 10.

Nico, it’s not privilege that gets the best ride. Just to guess it’s probably work ethic, reliability, loyalty, ability to get the job done, and a few other things like temperament. But probably not privilege.

Tony,I beg to differ.Good horses makes good jockeys.There are many examples where a jock rides for a good stable he ends up on top.Does this make him a great jock.When that same so called hardworking loyal jock rides go overseas to ride he falls off the bus because there is no privilege.Every jockey can get the job done on a good horse.
When S’mangu was Sean Terry’s stable jock he became the champion.And now?Callan Murray rode for De Kock and rode the top horses.What is happenning in Singapore.
I get a lot of fleck about this .Lewis Hamilton will never win the championship with a beetle.
I still maintain that GOD HORSES MAKES GOOD JOCKEYS.
It is just unfair to other jockeys who work just as hard and are also loyal.
You talk about loyalty.This word does not exist with trainers and owners.When a young jock rides a horse and this horse is starting to win race after race all of a sudden one of the so called top jocks gets the ride.And don’t tell me I talk nonsense.If you really follow racing you will see this happens.
Remember every jock wants to win because it is their income and therefore all are loyal but not the other way round.
Slaughter me if you want.

An inquiry should be held into the NHA. Using the excuse that a person who is appealing also has the right to have a lawyer present and he also has to be available. That’s the biggest BS I’ve heard. Does it take 4 months to have a lawyer available? NHA ( Arnold Hyde) is shifting the goal posts to suit his agenda.

I think that the detractors of this method is missing the point. It has nothing to do with the fact that it would have favored Muzi in this instance. With the outcome quite close it is clear to see that more mounts would perhaps have skewed the outcome but what the present competition does show is that better riding opportunities weigh more heavily than good old hard work. The present system is heavily flawed but the points system also has very clear drawbacks. It does however reveal the need for alternative thinking and perhaps a more equitable format to make the annual event more widely competitive.

But I agree that the idea of purely basing the outcome of the Championship on the number of winners ridden in a Season is flawed – cannot be right that a win in a Grade 1 race carries the same value as that of a Maiden Plate in Kimberley in determining our Champion Jockey.

Racing doesn’t need this type of publicity in SA. Muzi must stop losing on so many favorites, then his winning percentage will be more than 12%. How can you become a champion jockey riding 12% winners!! Thst is crazy. He might be riding more than most jockeys, he also gets paid for every ride! At 12% you do not deserve to be a champion. To play the race card on international tv is a disgrace to our sport. He deserves what he gets from the NHRA. It is time for everyone in this country to play on level playing fields. If you think you deserve to be a champion jockey with 12% winners, you need to leave the game. If I do my job at 12%, I will be fired!! So would everyone else be! Sick and tired of the race card being played for rubbish. It is time that our country start standing up again and tell it like it is, maybe all this sh1t will stop. However, we have to be so politically correct in everything we say. This is why our country is where it is Muzi! People thinking 12% makes them champions!!

Nico, I and many others hv to beg to differ insofar that any jockey could win on good horses. A Top trainer in Gary Alexander himself once said that a top jockey like Pierre Strydom is worth 2 lengths on most other jocks due to his excellent balance. Off course a jockey has to let the horse “go” at the right time in order to win or give it the best chance of running into the money.
A classical example is how Anton Marcus poached races by controlling the pace from the outset. Mike de Kock made it clear on national tv how he thought that lots of other jocks were often out of there league when competing against the likes of Delpech, Marcus, Shea and Strydom to name a few cream de lux.

These were masters of their art and to compare the run off the mill jocks against them is “diabolical”

The point system will be flawed as far as the Kimberley meetings are concerned.
It will compel jockeys to raid Kimberley in order to gather more points, which is not a “fair” proposition to some title chasing pretenders, unless the powers to be can somehow circumvent the obvious spanner in the works

There is no perfect system and it would be easy to dig a few holes in any new format. It is however very clear that the current system is just as far from perfect and it would be a good idea to consider some alternatives.

Jamtin,you say,-How can you become a champion jockey riding 12% winners!!–At 12% you do not deserve to be a champion.–If you think you deserve to be a champion jockey with 12% winners, you need to leave the game.– If I do my job at 12%, I will be fired!–People thinking 12% makes them champions!!
Two question Jamtin,do you think a jockey deserves to be a champion jockey with 20% winners?
And can people think 12.5% winners makes them champions. And if they do think that should they leave the game?

Mr. Hawkins,please explain your comment,–(it)cannot be right that a win in a Grade 1 race carries the same value as that of a Maiden Plate in Kimberley in determining our Champion Jockey.
1)Are you saying it is easier to win a R60 000 race than a R 6 million race.
2) You have to be a potential champion jockey to win with Frankel/Sea Cottage in a Grade 1 race.
3) Takes no skill to win a Maiden Plate in Kimberley.